By Daan de Wit

'Even if we have to invade another ten or fifteen countries to put an end to terrorism, we will have to do that', this from Donald Rumsfeld in an article in HUMO [17/3267] about the 'neocons' entitled The Top Ten Hawks. In addition to that remark we also made good note of the words of Dick Cheney: 'the country’s war on terrorism might not be over ‘‘in our lifetime'. The words of former CIA director James Woolsey also continued to reverberate: 'This Fourth World War I think will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us, hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War....'. So after conquering the second richest oilfields in the world - those of Iraq - I set my sights on the richest oilfields, those of Saudi Arabia. I would not have been very surprised to see the top-heavy regime get hit with an American destabilization attempt. Or Iran, also oil-rich and thus a good candidate. But even before the war with Iraq had ended, Syria got a stern warning.

Besides Iraq, Syria also target of neocons
Jim Lobe writes: 'As speculation about a U.S. invasion of Syria reaches a boil, it is helpful to look for hard clues. Many of the same neo-conservative hawks who campaigned for war against Iraq have signed reports in recent years that call for confrontation -- not mere engagement -- with Syria. In words that echo the same logic for striking Baghdad, the most prominent report, called "Ending Syria's Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role", warned that Damascus is developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and encouraged swift preemption. Published in May 2000, the study was released by the Middle East Forum (MEF). The MEF is headed by the well-known Islamaphobe, Daniel Pipes'. The NRC wrote about Pipes on April 29th: 'President Bush spoke cordially to the different religious groups in the Middle East yesterday. But according to critics, a recent appointment is sending a different message. [...] The Washington Post called it 'a cruel joke' that President Bush nominated Daniel Pipes to the board of the U.S. Institute for Peace [...]'. Lobe continues: 'Pipes co-chaired the [MEF] with Ziad Abdelnour, an investment banker who since 1997 has quarterbacked an organization called the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL)'.

The familiar faces want to see Syria hang
The headline 'Syria should be Next' above an article on the USCLF website leaves little to the imagination. Lobe: '"If there is to be decisive action, it will have to be sooner rather than late", warns the [MEF/USCLF] document, which was signed by a task force of 31 members, including several people who now hold senior foreign policy positions in the Bush administration.' 'Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who has accused Syria of harboring members of Saddam's regime, and asked whether Damascus was "next" after Iraq, replied that "it depends on peoples' behavior". Intelligence officials told reporters that Rumsfeld had ordered the drawing up of contingency plans for a possible invasion of Syria and that Feith, the Pentagon's number three official, had begun work on a policy paper about Syria's support of terrorist groups. "There's got to be a change in Syria," said Deputy Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz on a TV network news program. "It is a strange regime, one of extreme ruthlessness". At the same time, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director James Woolsey, a favorite of Wolfowitz and Perle, who may be tapped to play a top political role in post-war Iraq, declared that Washington was fighting enemies in a "World War IV" that includes "fascists of Iraq and Syria", a reference to Syria's ruling Ba'ath Party', states Lobe in another one of his articles.

Richard Perle looks beyond individual countries: 'A total war'
American Free Press writes: 'Veteran journalist John Pilger recently wrote [in an excellent article] about one of PNAC’s [Project for a New American Century] founding members; Richard Perle: “I interviewed Perle when he was advising Reagan, and when he spoke about ‘total war’, I mistakenly dismissed him as mad”, Pilger wrote. “He recently used the term again in describing America’s ‘war on terror’. ‘No stages’, he said. ‘This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq . . . this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war . . .'. He can probably make good use of his own/PNAC inspired vision: 'And advanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool". Perle to Pilger: '[...] our children will sing great songs about us years from now’. ”' Perhaps they will sound just as beautiful as the songs in honor of Saddam Hussein that were aired daily on Iraqi television. I can barely wait for the opportunity to live in a Brave New American Century.